A recession is the perfect time to take a hard look at budgets and trim what is not needed. People will question professional careers that are inflated and tha

A recession is the perfect time to take a hard look at budgets and trim what is not needed. People will question professional careers that are inflated and that is just a natural economic process. The university system is already heavily stratified with tenured professors in the upper class and grad students and staff in the lower class. I agree with your point about the use of adjuncts being a significant staffing trend. It's also a necessary trend especially at non-research (or sub-par research) universities. The combined roles of researcher and teacher at these universities lead to mediocrity in both in my opinion with professors using research as an excuse for slack teaching. Most students learn outside the class anyway.